Post navigation

Sleep Safe Tonight – The Northern Border is Well Secured Against Corny Dipshits

The following conversation *actually happened* this evening (July 31, 2014) at approximately 10:15pm EST on the U.S. Side of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel as I was crossing back into my native country. The entire interrogation lasted about 10 minutes, but it felt like a damned eternity. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to make it back.

Me: [Handing the nice border guard my passport, already opened to the picture page, all cheerful and dopey] Hello, sir. How are you tonight?

Border Guard: Where are you coming from this evening?

Me: Windsor, Ontario, Canada, sir.

Border Guard: Why were you in Windsor?

Me: Sight seeing.

Border Guard: What did you do while you were there?

Me: Well, I went to the Queen Elizabeth II park and saw fireflies, had dinner and, uh… went to a Tim Horton’s. It was the most Canadian thing I could think of doing.

Border Guard: Did you make any purchases while you were there?

Me: Well, I went to the duty free store at the tunnel opening and bought some maple fudge, a magnet and a tchochke for my son.

Border Guard: [Alert] A what, sir?

Me: A tchochke. [I pull out this weird cube labeled “Windsor” with two polar bears floating on a white sea and hand it to him]

Me: [Seeing the latch on the floor RIGHT WHERE I WAS FUCKING REACHING GAWDAMMIT] Ah, there it is, thank you, sir. [Pops trunk] It’s in my bag.

Border Guard: You have a computer bag in the trunk? Like that?

Me: Yes sir.

[Border Guard goes to the back of my car. I idly wonder how much handcuffs chaff as I hear him rustling around for my bag]

Border Guard: [Holding my bag] Where is the ID in this bag?

Me: It’s in that small outer pocket. Would you like me to get it?

Border Guard: No, I’ll find it.

[Border Guard returns to the back of the car as I desperately try to remember what contraband I have in that bag so I can have a convincing story ready]

[Border Guard pauses, shuts trunk, comes back to the booth]

Border Guard: What exactly do you do for Intel? What is your role there?

Me: [Thinking, “Now I have to describe my job to someone who knows nothing about my industry like my life depends on it because MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT“] I’m a strategy consultant. I do strategy consulting on behalf of Intel for our customers. For something called APIs.

Border Guard: [Eyeing me with – is that pity I see?] And where do you work out of?

Me: San Francisco.

Border Guard: And what business did you have in Detroit?

Me: Uh, well, I was here for a conference. It’s called API Craft, it was held at the Port of Detroit. Oh, but I did visit some prospects while I was here, too.

Border Guard: [Suspicious and confused] The Port of Detroit? What’s at the Port of Detroit?

Me: [Realizing that even the native Detroit people had never seen this venue before] Uh, it’s like this cool conference room thing at… uh… the Port. Of Detroit. In… Detroit.

Border Guard: Huh, OK. And who did you visit while you were here?

Me: I had meetings with [Big local company he’s definitely heard of] and a meeting with [Big company located nowhere near here that I forgot I met with over the phone].

Border Guard: So you work in Santa Clara? I thought you said you worked in San Francisco.

Me: [SHIT!] Well, I work for a company that was acquired by Intel that’s located in San Francisco. So I take BART every day to work from Concord.

Border Guard: But you’re in Detroit for work. Did you fly here?

Me: Yes. And I fly back out tomorrow.

[Border Guard Looks at my passport again. Looks at my license again. Pauses long enough that I legit think I’m about to be detained.]

Border Guard: [Folds license into passport and hands it to me.] OK, sir, have a good evening.

Me: [HOLYCRAPYES] Thank you, sir, you too.

I want to be clear – this was not friendly chit chat. I got the sense he was trying to catch me in a lie but, ultimately, was just making sure I was who I said I was. He wasn’t being a jerk about it at all, just being very stern and… well… border guardy. For the record, when going IN to Canada, the guy asked me where I was going, what I did for a living, why I was going to Windsor, then very skeptically asked me whether I intended on going anywhere else. Like, “Why the hell would ANYONE go to Windsor just to sight see?” That whole conversation took three minutes.